


Of Human Bondage

by Eristastic



Category: End Roll (Video Game)
Genre: Light Bondage, Lingerie, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Thighs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:59:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: Walter turns out to be into experimenting in bed too, and who is Raymond to say no to that?





	1. Chapter 1

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone that Walter was the experimental type. It _had_ been a surprise to Raymond that that extended to sex, but it was a welcome surprise, so what did he really care? If Walter wanted to try things out, he wasn’t going to say no.

He wasn’t going to admit he’d taken part in some of them, but he still wasn’t going to say no.

Role-play hadn’t been a success. It hadn’t been a failure either, but when Walter insisted on reading Raymond his rights while playing a policeman (and Raymond was fairly certain not even real policemen did that), it took the spark out of a guy. Walter had agreed, and the idea was dropped for good.

Intercrural had been such a success that it had slipped from the experimental nights to just become normal, depending on their moods. With bonier thighs it might have been disappointing, but no one could call Walter’s thighs bony – they were _glorious_. Raymond could just hold them forever, but he usually got smacked when he tried, so he settled for what he got.

Switching positions had been alright. There wasn’t much either could say for it: once they’d finished and both flopped onto the bed, Walter had looked over and made the universal expression of ‘eh’. Sex was sex, and sex with Walter was going to be good, but apart from that it was, indeed, eh. Raymond had given it some thought and decided that bottoming might be better when paired with the role-play, and he was about to bring it up when Walter offered a much more appealing suggestion.

And so they found themselves in Walter’s apartment on a Friday night, sorting through lengths of rope that Walter had pulled out of a shopping bag almost the second after Raymond had walked in.

Raymond frowned, poking at the stuff. “I don’t think you’re supposed to use actual rope.”

“Oh?” Walter lifted a single eyebrow like a tool, as he tended to do. Raymond had once wondered if he practiced it in the mirror, and then one day he’d walked in on Walter doing just that. How nice to have mysteries solved. They didn’t talk about it.

“I’m pretty sure you can buy the proper stuff in sex stores,” he explained, lifting up industrial-quality rope. “This is just going to chafe.”

Walter scoffed. “If you honestly think I’m worried about _chafing_ …”

“No, I mean like actually chafing. Rubbing the skin raw and then it bleeds, so you get gross sores everywhere.”

“Oh.” He looked down at the rope sprawled across the table and rubbed his hand across some of it experimentally. “The more I think about it, the more likely that seems.”

“Yeah. Pity you bought it, but probably not worth the risk, so what I propose is to use scarves. You got any?”

He did, an entire basketful of them, and while Raymond picked some out, Walter went back to put away the rope, because if not he’d spend the entire night cringing at the thought of an untidy kitchen. When he got back into the bedroom, Raymond held out a length of flowery material, smiling.

“Want to get undressed, then?”

Tying him up was an experience. Walter kept giving advice Raymond didn’t need, thank you very much, since he was a grown man who had tied many knots in his lifetime, and after searching on his phone for some body bondage designs, he concluded that easy ones didn’t exist, and gave up.

“It’s a good thing you’ve got a headboard with holes in it,” he remarked to Walter, who probably had other things on his mind, since his bound wrists were now being tied to his bed. Raymond had to give up talking about then too: to tie the knot properly, he had to slide in between Walter’s legs and it was doing wonders for his dick. Having thighs pressed either side of him just did that to a guy – it was totally natural. Rubbing up against Walter’s crotch helped, because really, did he have to wear underwear that tight? Totally unreasonable. Raymond could see everything, and he sat back on his heels to get a better look the moment he was done with the knot.

Walter was in a state. With his arms pulled behind him and his legs folded, he was forced to arch his back and it did him every favour possible. His cheeks were flushed (because Raymond had been leaning over him), his hair was ruffled, and he seemed to be trying to pretend he was calm when he really wasn’t, but that suited Raymond just fine. He still had those thighs to appreciate. Walter didn’t get out much, being mostly glued to his computer and research, and while it didn’t make much of a difference to Raymond if Walter’s stomach was kind of soft, or if he didn’t have much muscle definition (or any, actually), he was still going to lose his fucking mind over how round Walter’s thighs were.

“Are you finished?” Walter asked, frowning because that was just what he did.

“Not yet: give me like five more minutes.”

“Do you think this is comfortable or something? If you’re not going to do anything, just take a picture! Raymond, no, that was a figure of speech, you put that phone back _right now_.”

Raymond did, regretfully. “Want me to get my guitar out instead? I can play us something to get in the mood.”

“If you do that while I’m powerless to stop you, we’re breaking up and I’m telling Fairia and Yue everything you’ve ever told me not to tell them.”

The threat held weight – Walter’s ice-cold eyes saw to that – and Raymond did not fetch his guitar but started to undress instead, without any regrets at all. Walter watched him the whole time, and it was amazing what that did to a guy’s confidence in his ability to take his own clothes off. Lowered it dramatically, in this case. There couldn’t be that many different ways to take off a belt, surely.

“Wait long?” Raymond asked mildly as he went to the nightstand to find a condom and a bottle of lube that wasn’t almost empty.

“Yes. Are you going to hurry up or is this part of the game?”

“I think it’s part of the game. As in, you’re at my mercy,” he grinned, holding both the condom and the bottle up and waving them demonstratively. “Let me know if you want me to stop, but otherwise just sit back, relax, and let Raymond handle this.”

“Don’t refer to yourself in third person.”

“Yes, sir,” he drawled in a pretty decent attempt at being ironic, if he said so himself. Climbing onto the bed, he put down what he’d been holding and leaned over to kiss Walter. It was a little messy, a little impatient, and it didn’t take long before Walter was bucking his hips up into Raymond’s, which just went to show that the bondage was working. It was also working on Raymond: there was an oddly heady sense of power with this idea that Walter couldn’t really move, that he was the one doing everything, and he realised that next time (there was probably going to be a next time) he’d have to ask if they could use blindfolds. That sounded like a good idea. Just thinking about it made him groan into Walter’s mouth, unable to move a hand to stroke down his body and forced to make up for it with the movement of his own hips. It wasn’t enough.

He broke away, kissing Walter’s lips again briefly before moving down his neck, lingering at his collarbone so he could feel it when Walter swallowed (often), and down his chest. There were nipples to kiss, a navel to lick across just for the hell of it (and because it made Walter whine), and then he was in the right position to pull Walter’s briefs down and run his tongue up his half-hard cock. A satisfying choking sound came from above Raymond and he smiled, using his mouth almost idly while he massaged Walter’s ass.

Walter was struggling. It didn’t look like he was doing it seriously, so Raymond simply enjoyed it as he arched his back to what looked like the point of pain, and rolled his hips up into Raymond’s mouth so needily it should have been criminal. Small, hitched gasps came from his mouth and when Raymond pulled off, looking up, he saw Walter had flung his head back into the pillows. He was always responsive, if not very vocal.

Raymond sat back, pulling his own underwear off and getting himself ready. It didn’t take much: he defied anyone to watch Walter like this and not get hard. The man was breathing heavily, his cock rigid against his stomach, and he couldn’t do anything about it but struggle, uselessly. Raymond thought he could get used to the sight. He’d never understand people who had sex with the lights off: he could have used at least two spotlights just to make sure he caught every detail, every sweat drop, every stray hair.

Walter shook his head when Raymond slicked his fingers, ready to prepare him.

“No?”

“Did it before,” he explained, breath heavy.

“Is that really what you do on your days off?”

Walter wasn’t exactly in a position to reply or flip him off, but he did glare, to at least show effort. Raymond appreciated that, and he also appreciated how wide Walter could stretch his thighs, how beautifully he opened up so Raymond could push his cock into him. He went slowly, and Walter hissed the first time, then regained his breath and shot Raymond a look that only ever meant ‘hurry it up’. Gratefully – since he was already losing his mind just a little – Raymond obliged.

It was a pity Walter wasn’t vocal, but he had the expressions to make up for it. He was a genius at tilting his jaw just right so all Raymond wanted to do was kiss it. With every thrust that never seemed to be quite deep enough for him, he panted and canted his hips up, leaving the groans and curses to Raymond, who couldn’t have stopped them if he’d wanted to.

“ _Fuck_ , you’re so – _nng!_ – you’re so good, you know that? You’re so good, you feel so fucking good,” he rasped. “M’gonna – _ah!_ – lift you up now, yeah? You feel fucking amazing, you feel – _oh god_.”

When he lifted Walter’s hips up to get a better angle, Walter’s thighs wrapped around him, and it was almost more than he could stand. He was surrounded by tight heat, looking down at one of the hottest things he’d ever seen –Walter tied up, helpless, begging for more with his eyes – and Raymond was only human. He lost the pace, pushing in too far and too fast, and just as he was about to lose it, Walter came. The sight of that pushed Raymond over the edge too, and with the last of his ragged strength, he rode it out.

Collapsing onto the bed, he felt more satisfied than he had all month, probably. It had been a long day and he was ready to drop off, but he looked over to see Walter glaring at him.

Raymond grinned sleepily. “You want untying, don’t you?”

“Obviously.”

“Ah, but see, I’m very tired. I think I’ll just leave you like that for a bit.”

“You do that and I’ll…” he seemed to struggle to think for a few moments, before eventually settling on, “I’ll do what I threatened to do earlier.”

“Earlier? Oh, the guitar thing.” Raymond settled himself more comfortably down in the sheets. He was becoming unpleasantly aware of how gross drying come felt on naked skin. “Don’t you have any better threats?”

“Not right now, but untie me and I’ll happily demonstrate,” Walter said, seemingly suppressing a yawn.

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Raymond laughed, but he got up and started to untie the scarf anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a request, so I hope this is, uh, satisfactory.

Raymond thought he’d be forgiven for being a little taken back when he walked into Walter’s bedroom. He’d got a text asking him, quite politely, to come over (which only ever meant good things – Walter’s ‘bad things’ were usually heralded with a phone call instead), so he’d left work as soon as physically possible ( _such_ a shame) and legged it over, only to be confronted with this.

He swallowed. “You bought what.”

“Did you listen to me at all?” Walter frowned, putting his hand on his hip. Logically, one would think that he’d understand how distracting that was, since he happened to be wearing an extremely short, silk dressing gown that Raymond had given him as a joke (ostensibly), and every movement made the hemline even shorter. Apparently he was unaware of that, or the equally unfair fact that by sticking his hip out, the breath-taking stretch of skin above his sheer stockings became more obvious. Painfully so.

“…Sorry, what were you saying?” Raymond asked, sitting down heavily in the seat by the dresser that would be covered in clothes if this were anyone else’s room.

“I was saying that I didn’t buy these, Fairia did.”

“ _Fairia_?” It had to be a dream, but a real dream, not the ones they were usually in. Even those dreams weren’t usually this surreal. Raymond had to be in a dream, one where Walter wore silk dressing gowns and (lacy) lingerie and was apparently given such things by Fairia, of all fucking people.

“Well, I was telling her that I like experimenting–”

“ _You told her what_.”

Walter raised an eyebrow in a withering way which would probably have worked on a lesser man, or a man who wasn’t subjected to that same eyebrow multiple times a day. “Have you forgotten we’re friends? I find her an enlightening conversational partner, especially about sex. She knows so much.”

“That she does, but I didn’t really take you for the, uh…open type. About that kind of thing.”

Walter leant back against the bed, seemingly still unaware of how that made the hemline hitch up his legs. He was wearing suspenders. Red ones. Raymond felt his mouth go dry, which was something of a revelation, since he hadn’t thought mouths actually did that. Consider him taught.

“I’m not usually,” Walter said, looking down at his hand in a critical way, “but she’s so kind about it. She was the one who helped me research the bondage, actually, and anyway, is this really important? She said she’d support me, and it’s not as if I’m telling her any particular details. I’m just discussing options and getting inspiration.”

His boyfriend and his ex talking about sex together, with the unsaid aim of helping him get off. Raymond was going to pass out.

“Raymond, really, are you alright?” Walter walked over, leaning down to look in Raymond’s eyes with a vaguely worried expression. “You’re not too tired, are you? I don’t mind: if it’s been a long day, we can try this tomorro–”

Raymond shot out a hand to stop Walter walking away, shaking his head violently. “I’m absolutely fine,” he assured him.

“Well, if you’re sure.” Walter walked over to the bedside drawers, bent down so a sliver of red lace was visible (Raymond was going to pass out, he was really going to pass out), and fished out a familiar scarf.

“Want to use this?” he asked matter-of-factly. In a stunning feat of self-control, Raymond managed to nod instead of falling to his knees and begging. It had, in retrospect, been quite a long day.

Walter, carrying the scarf in a way that could only be called seductive (but this was _Walter_ – he never did that on purpose), came over to where Raymond was still sitting. He bent down, giving Raymond a shockingly good view down his chest, and helped Raymond’s jacket off, something he’d never done before, ever. It was around the point when Walter sank to his knees (his thighs, his thighs, his thighs were so obvious splayed out like that, _holy fuck_ ) and held the scarf up pointedly that Raymond realised he was being played with.

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” he said, his voice already ragged.

“Of course I am,” Walter said. There was a beat, and then he smiled. “Do you mind?”

In way of answer, Raymond reached a hand down to tilt Walter’s chin up, and kissed him. It wasn’t gentle, since they were a little past that tonight, but Walter made no complaints when Raymond’s fingers tugged on his hair or tilted his jaw a little forcefully. He only gasped, reaching his own hands round Raymond’s neck. What with the previous ‘excitement’ and the tiny, flighty sounds coming out of Walter’s mouth (on purpose – it had to be on purpose), Raymond found his trousers getting uncomfortably tight uncomfortably quickly, and he broke the kiss, his fingers still angling Walter’s chin to look at him.

In stark contrast with the cocksure curve to his eyebrows, Walter’s lips were red and flushed, and Raymond had to swallow to try and get any words out of his dry mouth. “Want to move this to the bed?”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t complain.” If he was at all flustered, he didn’t show it. He got up, needing just a little support to counter the wobble in his legs, and walked away, starting to shrug off his dressing gown until Raymond stopped him.

“Do you mind if I do it?”

Walter looked back at him. “You’re being awfully meek today: are you sure you’re alright? You haven’t said anything that’s made me want to punch you yet.”

“I mean, I could _try_ …”

“Don’t. But certainly, I don’t mind. Do you want to tie my hands up first, though?”

Raymond nodded, stripping off his own shirt and throwing it over the chair he’d just been sitting on, since he was a normal person who didn’t hang up his shirts when he was stripping for sex. “To the bed?”

“I was thinking more that you’d tie them together, so you could bend me over the mattress better.”

Raymond’s legs gave out, and he made an odd choking noise. Walter was laughing when he managed to get up again. It was a charming kind of laugh, with his eyes squeezed closed and the back of his hand brought up to his mouth in a half-hearted way. Raymond had to laugh too, and that went some way to relieving the tension.

“Okay, let’s try that again,” he said, still grinning, and took the scarf. He was getting good at tying things together with scarves (an important life skill), and Walter, still smiling, stood patiently while he did it. The atmosphere was different when he was finished: he looked down – but only an inch or two down – at Walter and took him in, his flushed cheeks and shining eyes and messed-up hair, and everything, and couldn’t help smiling again. He leant forwards, pressing a soft kiss against the side of Walter’s jaw, and whispered, “I’ll fuck you so good, don’t you worry.”

There was a little more blush on Walter’s face when he moved back again.

Gently, because he was feeling tender now, oddly, he turned Walter around by his shoulders, pushing him down onto the raised mattress and running a finger down the middle of his back. Walter shivered, stretching his arms out in front of him. He shivered again and again as Raymond pulled off the dressing gown, reaching round Walter’s chest to undo the knot (and to stroke down Walter’s chest, his nipples, the softness of his stomach, the hard jut of hipbones), and then the dressing gown was off and Raymond had to take a moment to himself.

There was, indeed, red lace, in a band around Walter’s hips. Rather than doing anything reasonable, there were then two diamond-shaped stretches of the stuff over his ass, ending in flimsy little suspenders that attached to the black stockings around his thighs. There were tiny bows. Raymond, his reason momentarily clouded by a haze of lace, ran his hands over Walter’s ass, urging him to arch his spine, and bent to kiss the small of his back. Walter let out a cry that could have been a curse or just a strangled sound, but whatever it was, it went straight to Raymond’s cock and he groaned, kissing the skin again and massaging Walter’s thighs.

He needed to strip. He was already grinding against the bed, but that wasn’t even close to what he wanted, so while he could happily have gotten off just on the feel of lace-wrapped Walter, he forced himself to stand up.

“Lube’s in the usual place?” he asked without needing to, but Walter’s breathless confirmation was reward enough. Lube and condom in hand, he walked back to where Walter was waiting for him (and wasn’t that a sight), and got undressed, throwing his clothes wherever the fuck they landed. It didn’t matter. He slipped the condom on, biting his lip so he didn’t whine or do something equally embarrassing at how it felt, and slicked himself up. He was about to do the same for Walter when he realised he didn’t have to.

“You already got yourself ready?” he asked.

A nod into the sheets, as if this was the time for modesty.

Raymond grinned. Leaning down, rubbing his cock against Walter’s ass and grinning wider with every tremble that brought, he murmured, “You’re so good. You’re _so_ good to me, you know? Did you think of me?” He put his hands on Walter’s ass, relishing the softness of the lace, and spread him, nudging his legs open wider. “Did you scream my name while you were touching yourself?”

Walter gasped and tightened his grip on the sheets as Raymond pushed in.

“It doesn’t matter if you didn’t,” Raymond said, though it was a struggle to even think. “I’ll have you scream enough now to make up for it.” With that said, he pushed in harder, a low groan coming out of his mouth at how tight and hot everything was. It was too much to speak, too much to think, and he wrapped his fingers around one of the suspenders, leaning his other hand on the bed to get some kind of support as he pulled out, drank in Walter’s gasp, and thrust in again.

“Oh god, Walter, you’re so fucking _good_ ,” he choked out once he’d picked up a rhythm. “Do you have any idea how you look right now? You’re so hot, I thought I was gonna come just from seeing you in this.” He twanged the suspender against Walter’s skin, making him shudder and then cry out as Raymond drove in harder.

“You should be illegal, y’know?” he groaned, leaning down to Walter’s ear and running his hand down to stroke the other man’s cock. He was already dripping. “You’re _so_ good, you spread _so_ well for me – _fuck!_ – you’re _amazing_.”

Walter was gasping, choking into the sheets, rutting against the bed with trembling thighs and Raymond thumbed over his cock one last time before reaching up to run his fingers through Walter’s hair. It wasn’t quite tugging, but it was enough to make Walter rear his head back and suddenly all those muffled sounds were loud and clear in the bedroom: a tangle of moans and hitched breaths and broken attempts at Raymond’s name.

Raymond’s breath was laboured, his whole body radiating heat, and another shot of pleasure was coiling in his abdomen at all the noises Walter was making. “Scream it, fucking _scream_ it, Walter,” he rasped, pushing harder, angling better, and finally got the satisfaction of hearing Walter shout his name – a desperate, helpless cry with his forehead pushed into the mattress and his fists twisted so tight that it had to hurt.

The sound was enough to send Raymond over the edge too: he really did stop thinking, then, because there was nothing between them but sensation. If words slipped out of his mouth, he didn’t pay them any mind. He closed his eyes, tried to hold his arms steady, and drove in relentlessly. Walter’s cries were reduced to needy whines, gasps, anything he could get out when he was practically biting the sheets. Like a single point of focus in a storm, Raymond realised Walter’s ears were red. He hadn’t thought Walter was the type to blush that fiercely, and it was endearing enough to make him kiss the back of Walter’s neck. A touch of sweetness; Walter moaned like the sound was hurting him.

They didn’t last long, somewhat predictably. Raymond came first, riding it out until Walter did too, and when they both finally collapsed, there was a gross kind of satisfaction about it. Gross, because everything was either sticky or sweaty, but Raymond supposed he could live with that. Legs shaking, he pulled out and flopped onto the bed.

For a minute or two, there was just the cooldown of heavy breathing and not wanting to move at all. Then, in his analytical tone of voice, Walter said, “So I take it I can call that one a success too?”

“Yeah, I… I’d say you can. I think I broke one of the suspenders though.”

“You did what?” Walter twisted around, trying and failing to get a good look, but he did eventually get his fingers on the offending piece of fabric, and scowled. “Oh, what the _fuck_ , Raymond. Fairia showed me the receipts – these were not cheap.”

Raymond, who – far from feeling guilt – merely felt a general sense of self-satisfaction, said, “I’ll buy you more, don’t worry.”

“Good.” That decided, Walter turned over to lie on his back and Raymond finally got a view of the front. He blinked, took a second to recover his faculties, and shuffled over to put an arm around Walter’s shoulders (awkwardly, since they were both lying down) and started to stroke the other man’s cock lazily, smiling at how the far more elaborate lace on this side felt against his fingers from where it was folded up.

Walter looked at him. “You want to go again? I’m not sure I look forward to aching that much tomorrow,” he said after a moment of thought.

“That’s alright: I’ll be gentle,” Raymond said, and winked. Far from punching him, Walter laughed – a sound which broke off into a hiss when Raymond got down on weak legs to take him in his mouth.

“O-okay,” Walter said, a little hoarsely. “Once more.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started reading a very D/S manhua, so, um. Here.  
> (It got kind of serious, but all D/S works do that eventually, I guess).

Raymond had a few people to thank for the position he found himself in. There was Yue, for apparently having such an exciting sex life. There was Fairia, for sharing the aforementioned sex life, and also poking her nose into other people’s sex lives as if she was trying to spread the joy or something just as annoying. There was Walter, of course, for taking Fairia’s advice and deciding to experiment with it to satisfy his endless curiosity. If that was what this was.

And, if Raymond was being honest, there was him too, for agreeing. But hey. Enjoyable things were enjoyable. Fun things were fun. Sometimes fun things included being blindfolded and chained and called disgusting. Life happened.

It wasn’t like it was much of a sacrifice to be handcuffed, sat against a wall, and ‘disciplined’, anyway. There was something incredibly hot about not being able to see, with only sound to tell him where Walter was.

“So what,” Walter said in a new voice that sent shivers down Raymond’s spine. “You think you’re better than this, don’t you? You think you’re free to go flirting with anyone that takes your fancy. You’re a fucking _dog_ , but you think you’re better than your master’s orders.”

Raymond swallowed, Walter’s voice sinking and settling into his ears. He sat back on his heels, his back against the wall. The carpet scraped his bare calves, and his throat ached from tilting it up so high in an effort to follow Walter, but none of that was exactly foremost in his mind.

He’d thought he’d be more into the bondage than the verbal abuse, but god, Walter was good at this. Worryingly so.

It had been a surprise, he would admit. The blindfold was fine (more than fine), the handcuffs were…well, they were there, at any rate, so the real surprise had been that Walter was actually getting into it. He’d been firm about choosing a safe word and making sure Raymond wanted to do it at all, and now he was being shockingly earnest about it. Far more so than he’d ever been with any role-play they’d experimented with before. Maybe he’d found his element.

Walter clicked his tongue.  “You’re not answering.” A slam, and the sound of a heel being ground into the floorboards.

Raymond opened his mouth to say something (what, he wasn’t quite sure), but he was stopped by the end of a crop pushing his chin even higher up.

“I’d choose your words carefully if I were you,” Walter said, almost a whisper. Raymond would have wondered where he’d got the crop, but (a) it didn’t take a lot of mental effort to work out that Fairia had probably given it to him, and (b) Raymond was having a lot of trouble concentrating on anything but his own pathetic anticipation. All he was wearing was underwear, all he could see was a thin line of light at the bottom of the blindfold, all he could hear was Walter’s voice and the chorus of their breath, and he thought he might be losing it a little. The handcuffs and crop pushing his chin up were not helping that.

He swallowed again uselessly. His throat was far too dry, and he could barely even remember the question.

“What do you want me to say?”

The crop was taken away, and then Walter’s hand was gripping his jaw too tightly, twisting his face round. “You’re here to beg forgiveness, and _that’s_ how you talk to me?”

He was supposed to beg forgiveness? It was news to him, but Raymond could roll with that. He thought he’d roll with just about anything if it kept Walter talking the way he was: his voice was lower than usual – angrier, more vicious – and while that would normally have sent Raymond for the nearest door, here it had his cock sitting up and begging.

It seemed the right thing to do, so he said, “Sorry…Master.”

“Good boy.” His grip loosened. “Now show me exactly how sorry you are.”

Raymond was caught between wanting to laugh at how ridiculous the situation was and being incredibly turned on by the whole thing. It was decided for him when Walter dropped his hand and seemed to move back, before pushing Raymond’s head down to the floor violently, stopping just short of slamming his face into the ground. Raymond exhaled, choking a little when he realised Walter’s bare foot was right underneath his face, his lips just brushing it.

Was this what Walter wanted? It was embarrassing. It was shameful in a way the bondage hadn’t been, and while Raymond wasn’t exactly opposed, following someone’s lead and taking initiative were two very different things. For a moment he stayed prostrated, breathing heavily to make up for the lack of space in his lungs, and then the hair on the back of his neck was twisted hard enough to lift his head up painfully.

“What are you waiting for?” Walter asked, treacherously close, deceptively calmly. “You’re a dog, and yet you don’t even have the decency to be loyal. Do you like acting as if you don’t belong to me? Do you like playing hard to get? Ah, but you weren’t a difficult catch at all.” He moved in so close that Raymond could feel the warmth of Walter’s breath on his cheek. “Remember this. Remember what it is to be on your knees before your master. _Remember_.”

Dismissively, he let Raymond’s hair go, but Raymond didn’t drop his head. He stared, his eyes wide open under the blindfold. Slowly – too slowly, perhaps – he realised that this wasn’t quite as much of a game as he’d first thought. But if they were pretending, then that was easier. Rather than talk it out, it was easier to lower his head to Walter’s foot and kiss it.

It didn’t come naturally, but he hadn’t expected it to. Though he would have preferred to use his hands, they were still bound, so he was left with just his mouth to kiss up the bones and tendons of Walter’s foot and ankle, lingering on his ankle bone as if that was somehow less incriminating. There wasn’t any noise apart from the sucking sounds he himself was making, and it wasn’t long until self-consciousness began to sink in. It wasn’t a feeling Raymond liked, and he tried to push it away, but the fact remained that he had no idea what he was doing. It was weird. Was this really what Walter wanted? Were they just doing this because Walter liked experimenting?

No. It didn’t feel like an experiment. Walter’s fingers slid into his hair again, lifting his head up, and he didn’t have to see to know how he was being watched. Perhaps a little desperately, he lunged upwards, trying to reach Walter’s lips, but he was caught by the throat before he could kiss him. Predictable, but still disappointing. He wanted to kiss the problem away.

“You’re too fiery,” Walter said dispassionately. “You don’t really think that you deserve to touch me, do you? Or perhaps you’re so deluded that you think you can be as fickle as you like and I’ll just take it. We’ll have to put an end to that little misunderstanding. Turn around.”

Something clenched painfully in Raymond’s abdomen and for a second he couldn’t breathe, let alone move. Anticipation or desire, he couldn’t tell: all he knew was that he wanted it, he wanted it enough to beg for it, but he couldn’t stop wondering what Walter was getting from this.

“Turn _around_.”

His humiliation, perhaps. If that was the case, he was willing; obediently, he turned around. Floorboards creaked and before he was ready, there were hands on the sides of his thighs, squeezing and brushing over them. Deftly, Walter unlocked the handcuffs and threw them onto the nearby bed.

“Keep your head down and lift your hips up.” There wasn’t anything even approaching doubt in Walter’s voice, and that was what sold it.

His thighs trembling, Raymond lifted his ass up, putting all the weight of his torso on his temple and forearms. This was, clearly, what Walter wanted. If there was more to it than mere experiment – and Raymond was sure there was, though it would have been nice to be wrong – then this was the way he wanted to work it out.

An easy enough wish to grant.

Raymond choked when Walter stroked up his cock, kneeling behind him so they were flush against each other. He clenched his hands for all the good it did him, since he could tell he wasn’t allowed to move them. It was just a matter of biting his lip, squeezing his eyes closed, and trying not to buck up into Walter’s painfully slow touch.

Walter wasn’t saying anything now. He slapped the inside of Raymond’s thighs with the crop – a silent order to spread them – and kneeled between them, leaning over Raymond’s back, still stroking him through his underwear with a gloved hand. If anything, that just made it worse. When Walter finally pushed his underwear down and took him in hand, Raymond actually whimpered.

“Do you want more?”

He couldn’t nod the way he was. He had to open his mouth and say it. “Yes,” he managed to breathe.

Walter’s grip on his cock grew painful. “Yes, _what_?”

“Yes, Master!” he choked.

“Good.” The pain died down, replaced by shivers of pleasure and the incongruous tenderness of kisses up his spine. Raymond gritted his teeth, blood pounding in his head so loudly that he couldn’t even care that whines were slipping out of his mouth now. Who wouldn’t whine? Of course he was going to cry out when Walter bit his shoulder blade, a sudden burst of pain soothed by his licking over it and kissing the skin.

Pushing his own hard cock against Raymond’s ass, Walter leaned over until his mouth was almost level with Raymond’s ear. “Is this what you like?” he asked softly, the smoothness of his gloved fingers finally stroking faster as he rolled his hips against Raymond’s. “Is this what you want? Of course it is. You’re pathetic. You’re disgusting. You’d let anyone get a leg over you if it meant they’d fuck you. You’d do anything, wouldn’t you?” To twist his point in, he thrust against Raymond, took his pre-come–slicked glove away, and – without a second’s pause – pushed a finger into his ass.

Raymond choked against the carpet. His breath was coming out brokenly now, but he couldn’t find the presence of mind to care.

“Remember this, Raymond,” he said, pushing a second finger in. “Remember that I’m the only one. Remember that you’re _mine_ , and I have no interest in sharing.” He crooked his fingers, and Raymond cried out, unable to do anything but move his hips uselessly, desperate for anything he could get. He couldn’t even hear what he was saying anymore – begging, probably, or crying out Walter’s name. There was only fierce need that he had to satisfy, and with just two fingers, he couldn’t. It was relief itself when Walter sat back and began to stroke Raymond’s cock with his other hand again, but by that time Raymond was too far gone to understand it. All he could feel was harsh carpet against his skin, the overwhelming darkness, and pleasure coiling tightly in his gut.

He came, and screamed, and only then did Walter remove his hands and say, “You can move.”

He did, rolling gratefully onto his back to catch his breath. It was a long time coming, and an even longer time until his body felt like it was his own again.

Around that time, Walter came to undo the blindfold. Apparently he needed to straddle Raymond to do it. For a few moments, Raymond just blinked up at the blinding light that slowly cleared to show Walter looking down at him critically.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Raymond groaned. “Kind of bruised, but that’ll heal.”

Walter nodded. He seemed self-conscious, or perhaps just preoccupied – Raymond could feel that he was still hard. Neither of them moved to do anything about it, but in Raymond’s defence, his whole body felt so sapped of strength that it was a miracle he was able to reach up and stroke some of Walter’s hair behind his ear.

“How about you?” he asked, his voice hoarser than he would have liked. “Think you’re going to want to do that again?”

“Would you be alright with that?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Raymond said, a tad loftily. “If that’s what you, uh…need.”

Walter didn’t meet his eyes.

“I don’t mind,” Raymond said, grinning. “But I mean, talking is also an option. Just putting that out there.”

“I know.”

“Oh, come here.” He pushed himself off the floor, meeting Walter halfway to kiss him briefly. “We can talk about it later, or never, whatever you want. But first, let’s take care of you, _Master_.”

Walter blanched, his eyes wide as he finally looked at Raymond. “Never say that again.”

Raymond lay back down to relieve the ache in his abdomen. “Why not? You were the one ordering me to do it, you know.”

“Th-that was part of the experiment! You know that! You are _never_ to call me that normally!”

Raymond grinned. “As you wish, Master.”

Walter made a sound somewhere between frustration and embarrassment, clenching his fists on Raymond’s chest. The gloves were gone, and the crop, and everything else; it was just them. Walter was blushing angrily, a little, and Raymond couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief. Things were normal like this. If they talked about it, then they talked about it, but at least he hadn’t ruined this with some less-than-opportune timing and meaningless flirting with co-workers.

He was going to consider the experiment a success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm going to go on a pilgrimage to cleanse myself, so if I don't post anything for a while, that's why.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shrugs

Walter wasn’t reading a very interesting book. It was some gritty historical thing set in some civil war or other with a lot of grime and filth and not a whole lot of hope. His eyes kept skimming over lines, skipping dreary description to get to uninteresting dialogue. Beside him, Raymond was bound, blindfolded and almost entirely naked on the bed, and he kept doing these little breathy whines – struggling and arching his back – so Walter thought he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate even if the book had been good. But, alas, it wasn’t. His concentration was so shot that, when Raymond began to beg again, he slammed the damn thing closed and looked over, frowning.

Of course, the frown was wasted on a blindfolded man. Wasted effort on someone who wouldn’t appreciate it. It seemed like a grotesque microcosm of his life.

“Are you quite finished?” he asked.

“Pl…please…please let me…”

Fragmented sounds slipping out in frantic movements – Raymond’s voice was a fragile, fractured thing now. It had been cracking for some time.

“I don’t see what you’re complaining about. You asked for this. You all but begged me for this,” Walter reminded him, getting up and putting the book on a nearby surface. In all likelihood, it would gather dust there until he gave in and admitted that he would never finish it. Slowly, he walked over the creaking floorboards onto the carpet that was laid out at the foot of the bed. He had put new sheets on that morning. Rotten lack of foresight, that. They were already crumpled beyond repair from Raymond’s grasping hands and feet, as if he would find relief in the feeling of strangling cotton in his fingers.

“… _please_ …”

Walter looked at him, at the way he squirmed. “No, I don’t think so.”

It was a game, of course. A game. Raymond himself had suggested it, had shown Walter the cock ring and laughed, remarking on how ‘wild’ it would be to try it out. Perhaps this was wildness for him, then. Essentially blind and helpless with his hands tied under his back, his every attempt to turn onto his front thwarted so he could only thrust up into the empty air, crying out for more. It was the sort of thing he liked. He had liked the slow preparation, the feeling of Walter’s fingers in his mouth and then his ass – he had made it very clear that he enjoyed that. He was a generous man, when it came to moans. It was generosity within insatiable greed. He hadn’t a trace of shame: he would buck up into your hands, desperate for whatever you could give him. Anything. Anything, at all, would make him groan and swear, grinding down and pleading for more.

Anything would do, but it was typically Walter. He, still mostly fully-clothed, stood watching Raymond beg for some time.

“I…I know you’re there,” Raymond said, his mouth curving into a desperate smile. “I’d have heard you leave. You’re there…are you really just fucking watching? Come _on_ , Walter, it’s been so long… How long has it – _ah!_ – been? Fuck, you’ve been…you’ve just been _reading_ for like half an hour, this is getting…” He began to writhe again, violently. “Walter, please, I just need to come, I’m serious, I’m—! Fuck, fuck, fuck, don’t _stop_ me! Let me turn over, if you won’t help! I’ll get myself off, I’ll—”

“You’d get yourself off?”

Seeming to sense the wrongness of what he had said, Raymond threw his head back onto the already-abused pillows and backtracked. “No! No, I’m just… Fuck, you know nothing’s as good as you, right? I just…ah, fuck, fuck it Walter, I just want—! I’ll do anything, yeah? I’ll suck you off and you can fuck my mouth – I know you like that. You can do anything, _anything_ , just let me… please!”

He had stopped writhing now: he had heard the creaks settle, telling him that Walter was standing right in front of him, and he began to plead in a different way. Arching his back, he spread his half-bent legs further, wider than seemed totally comfortable, and then further still; wearing only flimsy stockings (15 denier, Fairia had said, whatever that meant), he was baring himself completely: the invitation could not have been clearer.

“Anything,” Walter repeated.

“Anything!”

Anything, just let me come. I would do anything, I just want to come. You personally mean nothing, I only want someone to help me get off.

It was a good thing, Walter thought, that Raymond was quite so partial to blindfolds and harsh language. It was easier, then, to be himself. This was stress relief for him too. To let resentment and hurt flash on his face, and to have it go unseen; to lash out and punish, and to have it taken in with pleasure.

“ _Please_ ,” Raymond moaned, jerking his hips up restlessly.

“You think you’ve been good enough to deserve it?”

“I…” He swallowed dryly – the sound was audible in the small bedroom, rising above the faint hum of plugs, chargers and the traffic outside. “I…please! Fuck, Walter, please! I’ll spend the rest of my damn life being as good as you want, but for christ’s sake!”

The rest of his life. A lifetime of this: of Raymond taking his stress relief like a misbehaving dog, of Walter taking his like a two-faced coward.

He closed his eyes, breathed, and got onto the bed.

The whine of springs seemed to wind Raymond tighter, and anticipation was laced on his every breath. True to form, he didn’t move. His legs were still splayed – lewd, shameless, and Walter wouldn’t pretend the sight of them, the sight Raymond offered, didn’t tighten something in his gut. Warmth pooled there, and that went some way to pushing the unwanted thoughts back.

He half-kneeled between Raymond’s hips, one leg stretched back to support his weight on the floor, and ran a finger down Raymond’s left inner thigh. He stifled a cry by biting his lip, but when Walter’s fingers moved low enough to ghost over the wiry hair around his cock and his hipbones, he failed to hold it back. That was encouragement enough, not that Walter very much needed the stuff: he was used to this (used to all of it; desensitised, now) and he was feeling it too. His skin was growing hot. With slow, decadent but firm movements, he lowered his head to take Raymond in his mouth. He cried out unrestrainedly now: it was broken into gasps and stuttering sobs as Walter used his tongue almost lazily, as if he himself wasn’t feeling the urge to grind against the edge of the bed himself.

It was by no means a thorough job, what he was doing. It was just to drive Raymond further, just to spin things out, running them thinner and thinner to see when he would break. But perhaps they had already gone past that point: Raymond certainly seemed mindless enough now. He kept moving, writhing around, and it was taking all of Walter’s strength to keep his thighs apart.

In the end, it was Walter’s own swelling arousal that made him decide to stop – to run his tongue along the length one last time before kissing the tip in a gentle gesture uncommon to this kind of game. Then, kneeling on the bed, he looked down.

“You’re a mess,” he said, mildly critical, as he began to stroke Raymond with his hand. “You don’t have any shame at all, do you? This is getting ridiculous. At this point…” Emphatically, he ran his finger down to Raymond’s ass, and back. “I wouldn’t even need to fuck you myself. Why don’t we just go for the easy route here? I’m pretty sure I’ve got a banana in the kitchen, or we could use a cucumber, or some kind of long, elongated squash.”

The attempt at lightening his own mood fell flat with him, but Raymond began to laugh weakly.

“Well,” he said, licking his lips, “that sure helped kill my bo— _ohh_ my god, holy _fuck_ Walter! Fucking christ, don’t just deepthroat a guy, give me a little _– nng!_ – warning! Oh my god, fuck, fuck…”

And he went on, the moment of control lost, and Walter pulled off, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were watering: he hated doing that, but a little here and there was worth it for the reactions he received. And yet everything felt numb, somehow. It was like he was only going through the motions. Clearly, the feeling wasn’t shared, because Raymond truly looked as if he was losing his mind. Oh, he was in a state. He always was. How many times had they been like this? How many times would they be? How many nights of ‘ _I’ve had a rough day: do you think we could…?_ ’, how many of insecurities worming into Walter’s chest and eating him from the inside out until he was only hollowness, only a shell of rancour and need that would never be satisfied, would always be suffocated by his own doubts? How long would this go on for? Why could they never progress?

Why could he never do better?

He said it all the time, he reminded himself as he began to strip, reaching for the clear plastic bottle that threatened to fall off the bed, and began to prepare himself. He kept saying that he should be better than what he was, that he was just going through a rough period these days. That was why his enjoyment of anything was so diluted. It was just a mixture of things: some bad, harrowing jobs; his tense and strained links with his family growing tenser and more strained; his days flying by in a mix of work and late nights spent staring up at ceilings and wondering when he would do something he could be satisfied with. Wondering when he would be someone he could be satisfied with, someone other people could tolerate. It was just the discouragement of making headway – he had gone out to dinner with Raymond, Yue and Fairia the other day, and it had honestly been fun – only to have it ripped out from under him when another bad day pulled him down. Thinking he had got over one depressing thought only to be hit by it tenfold after a new trigger. Thinking he was used to his sparse (at best) social life and the way he didn’t really _matter_ to anybody at all, not really, only to be hit with misery so deep it made him want to be sick, despite swearing he was fine with solitude.

It was only that. If it were not for that, he would be better. He would be able to have this relationship with Raymond without constantly wishing (bitterly, bitterly, oh, but he was _bitter_ ) that Raymond would just come out and tell him that he was only a fuck buddy, that he was replaceable. He would be able to be grateful that someone would spend this kind of time with him, instead of wondering at every turn when the curtains would lift and leave him bared, defenceless in the face of mockery.

And he was so good at it usually. Usually, it was fine, but it only took a few bad thoughts, a single bad night, to draw out the worst in him.

He had been dwelling on it for too long: if it were possible, he would have said he was over-prepared now. So he pulled out his fingers, and stretched. Ignoring Raymond’s broken scream, he removed the cock ring, throwing it onto the sheets. They would be ruined with sweat, anyway. He put both hands on Raymond’s inner thighs and pushed them further apart, if only to show dominance and to feel the shudder it elicited under his hands. The muscles were tight and he pushed the heels of his palms into them; Raymond whined. Then, with only a perfunctory slick of lube to make things easier, he manoeuvred himself so he was all but straddling Raymond’s hips, and lowered himself onto his cock.

He knew well the sounds Raymond made then, but he never did get tired of them. Raymond wasn’t imaginative in his swearing, but he was enthusiastic about it, shouting out countless _fuck_ s as he seemed to bury back into the mattress, apparently caught between the urge to rut mindlessly and the desire to cry with relief. Walter began to move, slowly. Just rolling his hips, wincing at the discomfort, and presently he leaned over Raymond’s chest. The room was too warm: he could feel a bead of sweat roll down his neck.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked pleasantly.

Before Raymond could answer, he quickly lifted himself up a little and plunged back down, flinching in pain that time, but it was worth it for the strangled cry that greeted him. Raymond had thrown his head back and his chest went up and down like a raging sea.

“F- _fuck_ , Walter! You’re so—! Fuck, yes, yes, yes! You’re so tight, you’re so warm, fuck, fuck, I… _Fuck_!”

That, it seemed, was as far as his eloquence would take him, and he fell into pathetic, half-broken cries. Walter felt a pang of something, something beyond the coiling arousal in his own stomach: struggling to keep his balance without support from his arms, he took Raymond’s face in his hands almost gently. It wasn’t typical for this kind of play, and Raymond almost stilled under his touch, though their hips were still moving together, at wildly different rhythms. There was a moment of something that almost felt like calm: their faces close together, their breaths mixing so that even as Walter panted for more air, he only breathed in what Raymond breathed out. Then Walter dug his nails in.

“Who else can make you feel like this?”

A second’s hesitation, and he dug them in harder, began to roll his hips more violently. Raymond choked, and said, “No one! No one, fuck, how could anyone else—!”

“Good.”

That was it, then. It didn’t take many more jerks of his hips to finish Raymond off, and then there was only sweat and mess and Walter’s own orgasm taking him like a hand gripping his torso so firmly he couldn’t breathe.  And then it was over.

He got off, recovered his breath, went to clean up, pulled on some boxers, and came back to untie Raymond and clean him up too. It was as mundane as anything, now. Raymond’s yielding limbs, his exhausted docility, and the bad joke he made about how everything was too bright once the blindfold was off so he must have ascended, and wasn’t Walter looking angelic as always.

Walter scoffed at him, and went to throw the cloths in the laundry basket.

They had work in the morning. It hadn’t been a good night to choose, for either of them, but since they’d chosen it, they silently agreed that Raymond would be sleeping over, and he managed to slip on some of the spare underwear he kept at Walter’s and slide under the covers. Walter went to lock up, and when he came back, Raymond was asleep.

Walter paused. Then he turned off the lights of the bedroom, and – as quietly as he could – closed the door behind him. For an endless moment, he stood in the corner of the room, looking at the area he knew the bed was in as his eyes slowly grew accustomed to the darkness and began to see the slithers of light strewn around the room. Numbly, he went to open the window, letting in fresh air and the distant beeps of cars. Something funny came over him then: like a brief rush of weakness, he lost his balance, and had to lean against the windowsill; he was so tired, but couldn’t quite move to the bed. He could only look at it.

It wasn’t love, what they had. He thought that was fairly clear. They had never talked about it, but then, he never wanted them to talk about it, for fear of what he himself would say. Sometimes he thought he hated Raymond more than he liked him – no, in fact, he was sure of it. Raymond was an easy man to hate. An easy man to want to strangle, to kill with your bare hands, and yet not nearly so cold and unpleasant as Walter himself:  he was so much _more_ than Walter would ever be.

So much more alive. So much more living. So much more worthy of life.

But there was no point in thinking of that. It was maddening, thinking about how awful Raymond was and yet how little Walter deserved him. It was two sides of himself battling it out, unable to decide on his net worth, and it made him feel sick. All he knew for sure was that he had to get used to the idea that he would eventually be grown out of, like old shoes or an embarrassing past habit, and that was just how it was. It was simply the way things were: most of Walter’s friends had been the same way, and he didn’t blame them at all. With a difficult personality like his, these things happened. They hurt, but they still happened.

With leaden limbs, he walked to the bed and got in, hating every squeak of the springs. He needed a new mattress – he had for about a year and a half now. Was that how long they had kept this up? It seemed like nothing, put like that.

As he was turning over, trying to get comfortable, he felt Raymond move behind him. He went still, unwilling to wake him up any more than he already might have, but as he was listening out for Raymond’s breathing to go back to slow, steady tides, he felt something. The warmth of a human body moving close against his back, the security of an arm coming around his side. The brush of breath against his nape.

“’Night,” Raymond said sleepily – barely a whisper, and sunk back into the pillows.

Walter, fighting the sudden and unconscionable sting of tears, closed his eyes.


End file.
